On Refusing to Outsource Meaning and Self-Cultivation
The self isn't something we find, it's something we do—we become by doing.
This is Part 1 in a series about self-cultivation.
The Problem With Outcome-Oriented Living
One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn (more than once, unfortunately):
It’s possible to sacrifice meaning to achieve a big goal—and still lack meaning when you reach it.
An old friend of mine bought a business to run. It’s what he thought he’d always wanted. He was stepping into his dream.
The business was failing, but he knew that going in. He had a strategy and wanted the challenge.
After about a year, his strategy was working—he was succeeding at his dream. The company was more profitable. They had found clearer paths to further growth. But there was a problem: he found himself stuck in an HR role that he despised.
We met for lunch one day while he was in the rough and tumble, and it became clear that the fix wasn’t as simple as hiring an HR manager. I asked him out of concern, “What’s your ultimate goal here?” He thought for a moment before saying, “I really just want to grow the business enough to sell it so that I can open an orphanage in Africa and help kids.”
He wasn’t after a different role. He’d virtually accomplished his goal, and he realized he wasn’t going to get the sense of meaning he’d been craving. As a result, he was after a completely different way of living.
Goals Don’t Produce Meaning
In effect, a goal is a strategy that says:
Conform your actions to the requirements of an outcome until you achieve it.
A goal is an effective tool for producing outcomes.
A goal is not always an effective tool for producing meaning.
This is because meaning isn’t exactly an output; it’s more of an emergent property of lived engagement.
Two foundational papers from the 90’s1 established that cognition is more than abstract calculation—it’s an embodied process grounded in action and feedback within an environment. A goal is an abstract proxy for a lived reality that will remain, to some degree, opaque until it becomes embodied. When we focus on abstract outcomes, we risk cutting ourselves off from the embodied context that true meaning depends on.
Trying to project meaning ahead of experience is like trying to reverse-engineer joy from a blueprint.
The core problem isn’t often that we haven’t thought enough about the destination, it’s that we can’t fully perceive a life we’ve never lived.
A goal can become a caged elevator—mechanically sound, upward-moving, but sealed off from the very terrain it’s trying to reach.
Self-as-Action
Daniel Dennett, famous for framing the self as the “center of narrative gravity”, makes the case that the self is not something inside you, it’s something you do. Just as the center of gravity emerges from but doesn’t exist separately from a physical object, your self emerges from the ongoing story you construct through your actions and choices.
I wrote in another article about how anchor questions can help us draw meaning toward the self.
The self, then, is an enacted processes, not a static object or set of traits that exists within you. We’re constantly drafting and re-drafting who we are.
You can’t “find yourself” because you don’t discover yourself in order to act—you act in order to discover what actions best align with your emerging self-narrative.
Self-cultivation begins when we shift from predicting meaning to practicing it—using our actions as a filter for what resonates and shaping ourselves through lived experience.
A Case for Self-Cultivation
At it’s core, self-cultivation is a refusal to outsource meaning.
Self-Cultivation: the ongoing process by which individuals refine their thoughts, behaviors, habits, and values in pursuit of greater alignment with their chosen ideals—rather than externally imposed goals.
Self-cultivation is action-oriented. It’s not theoretical.
It’s also not a chisel, it’s a filter for deciding which of our actions produce meaning.
As we enact the self, we ask “Does this action cultivate a more meaningful lived experience for me?”
We then find ways to take that action more frequently (see: proportional time investment).
The key benefits are extremely important:
Self-cultivation leaves you open to integrate many interests. You can create a unique mosaic out of your diverse curiosities.
You begin and aim to stay where you want to be, rather than ending up in a place you hope you’d like to be.
You can iterate in smaller steps. If you find you don’t like where you’ve ended up, you’re usually able to take one step back.
You double down on what’s working, and grow the focus until that area becomes a bigger part of your life.
Self-cultivation isn’t an easy approach though. It comes with real tradeoffs:
It requires you to find what you want outside of milestones and goals
It doesn’t benefit from quick-fixes or life hacks because it’s an ongoing process, not an outcome
It requires deep introspection, which can be uncomfortable for some because it’s inefficient
It’s non-instrumental. The value it produces isn’t necessarily in the form of wealth or status—it’s in the quality of being. The value is in a more personally-tailored meaning.
This is the reframe that has been most impactful to me over the past 10 years: self-cultivation is about cultivating more of the actions that create meaning in our lives. It’s not about the future, it’s about the now.
This is merely a case for self-cultivation. In future articles, I’ll provide more tactical ideas for “how”.
Instead, in the up-coming series on self-cultivation, I’ll discuss:
High-agency frameworks that I’ve found helpful
Lessons I’ve learned during my own efforts
Principles I’ve found useful
If there’s anything specific you’d like to hear in future articles, let me know in the comments below.
see: Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991
This article on "The Problem With Outcome-Oriented Living" resonates deeply with a fundamental human struggle, specifically my own: the tension between achievement and meaning.
You have artfully captured the paradox many successful people face - reaching their goals only to discover an emptiness they didn't anticipate. Your friend's story perfectly illustrates how we can succeed at the wrong thing, mistaking the container (business ownership) for the content (meaningful work). I find this to be true in many of my past endeavors.
The distinction you draw between goals as tools for outcomes versus meaning as an "emergent property of lived engagement" is particularly insightful. This echoes philosophical traditions from Buddhism to existentialism that emphasize presence and process over attachment to outcomes.
Your framing of self-cultivation as "a refusal to outsource meaning" is powerful. Much of my time in my career has been obsessed with optimization and external validation, the idea that we might need to filter our actions through their meaning-making capacity rather than their goal-achievement potential feels both revolutionary and ancient.
The acknowledgment of tradeoffs shows intellectual honesty - self-cultivation isn't easier, just potentially more fulfilling. This approach requires patience in a world hungry for quick transformations.
I'm curious how you might address the balance between necessary outcome-oriented activities (we all need food and shelter) and meaning-making. Is there a synthesis possible, or must we divide our lives between practical necessities and meaningful pursuits?
Next step, keeping these ideas in focus to implement these in daily life.